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Wireless Signal Sent Through Meat Fast Enough to Watch Netflix


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An implanted pacemaker.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have sent a wireless signal through slabs of meat at speeds fast enough to transmit high-definition video.

Credit: P. Marazzi/Science Photo Library

Andrew Singer from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues have sent a wireless signal through slabs of pork and beef at speeds fast enough to transmit high-definition video.

Singer says the technique has the potential to help physicians interact better with medical devices implanted in a person's body.

Singer has spent years building ultrasonic systems for the U.S. Navy and suspected using ultrasound to transmit data would work well in the body. His team suspended  pieces of meat in a water tank and found the ultrasound signal passed through both types of meat at speeds of up to 30 Mbps, which is 1,000 times faster than existing implants.

"You could stream Netflix through the pork loin," Singer says.

The team plans to test the approach with real medical implants or living tissue.

Singer envisions software updates being beamed directly to medical implants without the need to remove them surgically and, eventually, multiple implanted devices connecting over an in-body wireless network.

From New Scientist
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Abstracts Copyright © 2016 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA


 

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